Center for a New American Security

Ha, I think I instead you

Ha, I think I instead you ought to read this interesting embed report from eastern Afghanistan:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LH03Df03.html

So I sent in a scan of my Medicare card. I worried that this evidence of my senior citizenship, coupled with my membership in the "weaker sex", the one we're supposedly rescuing in Afghanistan, would raise questions about my fitness for missions "outside the wire" of a Forward Operating Base (FOB, pronounced "fob") in eastern Afghanistan only a few miles from the tribal areas of Pakistan.

No kidding! Here's another good one, about a sergeant on an FOB:

He made a joke about reporters who are more gung-ho than soldiers.

More specifically:

Considering how much of my tax dollar goes to the Pentagon, I thought the army might have a few spare flak jackets to lend to visiting reporters, but no, you have to bring your own.

That was perhaps a sign of things to come, as I was soon swamped by complaints from soldiers and civilian contractors alike: not enough armor, not enough vehicles, not enough helicopters, not enough weapons, not enough troops - and even when there seemed to be plenty of everything, complaints that nothing was of quite the right kind.

And most choice, the MRAP deal exposed:

The trainer talked so assuredly about what to do in case of a rollover that he almost gave me the impression you could swivel your hips and right the vehicle, like a kayak. But no, once it rolls, it's a goner. You have to crawl out and walk. (So much for ambush protection.) Then, one of those big trucks we saw on the highway to Bagram has to come out and haul it back to base, where the foreman with that new instruction-manual CD may have a go at fixing it.

That, in a nutshell, is why the seven-passenger MRAP is being replaced by the five-passenger M-ATV, a huge armored all-terrain vehicle not quite so inclined to tip over. Because it holds fewer soldiers, however, you have to put more of those vehicles on the road, and I'm sure you already see where that leads.

One benefit of our addiction to expensive, state-of-the-art stuff, however faulty it may prove, is that the private manufacture of armaments now helps keep our economy on life support and makes some military-industrial types rich.

Thanks for the link.

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately the email contact I provided in the blog post is broken thanks to my university "upgrade" of the email system. For those who tried, try again with this email:

http://afghanistan-analyst.org/contactus.aspx

And first commenter, "never done manual labor"? I used to be in residential construction: site prep, foundations, framing, etc... And I was involved in an under-the-table firewood business on the side. No illegals in Canada so you sort of have to do the manual labour yourself. As for not serving, if I had served you would listen to everything I say just like everybody obeys Exum's directives because he served, right?

Christian, dude, chill.

Christian, dude, chill. Everyone knows that Josh Foust thinks you're way hotter than Erin will ever be. Toss in those chaffed and calloused hands from your construction work, and you're almost as hot as an entire village of Bacha Bazi fans sexed up by Josh's impassioned booty dancing.

Keep your chin up, and keep on keeping on with that patronizing advice.

"help all you military

"help all you military officers out there with your sources and reading lists"

1) Most of what we write is classified, and if not found on wikileaks it does not get posted on blogs
2) Thanks for the help, however, understand that active military officers are not professional researchers
3) The link to the article is blocked from Afghanistan ("Web Content Filtering Category "Web Hosting" is prohibited.")